ATK retain 4 foreigners for ISL's third edition

Atletico de Kolkata (ATK) announced on Monday that they have retained the services of four foreigners -- Iain Hume, Jose Luis Espinosa Arroyo (Tiri), Sameehg Doutie and Ofentse Nato -- for the upcoming season of the Indian Super League (ISL).

The team management also confirmed that Indian talents like Shilton Paul, Debjit Majumder, Pritam Kotal, Bikramjit Singh, Kingshuk Debnath, Bidyananda Singh Ningthoujam, Bikash Jairu, Dika, Robert Lalthlanumna and Prabir Das will be taken in.

Bidyananda is touted as the next big thing in Indian football and was spotted by Youth Academy coaches from Barcelona, Manchester United and Inter Milan. He was the most versatile player during the training camp at the Aspire Academy in Doha.

"I am eagerly looking forward for my visit to the football capital of India and coach an exciting team whose performance over two seasons has been fantastic. I am truly excited about the talent I will encounter in India as I am going through their profiles and seeing clippings of their past matches," ATK head coach Jose Molina said in a release.

"This year we have some of the best Indian players who will be playing for ATK. I have heard about the love for the game in Kolkata and how passionate are the fans. It will be my priority to marshal my troops and ensure memorable football."

Atletico co-owner Sanjiv Goenka said the franchise was also keen on building a strong bench strength for the upcoming season.

"This year we at Atletico de Kolkata are looking at zeroing upon some consistent performers while building the team for 2016. The motive is to build a favourable and experienced bench strength who will prove to be an asset over the taxing three month long tournament. We have retained our star performers from last season who have been game changers for us on numerous occasions," Goenka said.

--IANS

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